Friday, September 22, 2006

we're here

Continental isn't Singapore Airlines, that's for sure, but the food was much better -- Indian veg. It was a 14 hour flight with yelling, screaming kids most of the way. When we were taking off, one small girl (maybe 4?) started shouting "We're crashing! We're crashing into the water! We're crashing!" She kept this up the entire take-off. When we were landing, she and a chorus of other kids her age shouted "Whee! Whee! Whee!" the whole time. FUN.

OK -- it's 11:02pm here, 1:32pm in NY. So you do the math to figure out the time difference.

So far it's great. We had a breeze at the airport, no problems at all, and the hotel really did send a car for us. As we were leaving the airport, a young girl started doing cartwheeley things, forward flips I guess? and then asked for money. The driver gave us a little tour as he was driving us to the hotel, and we could mostly understand each other. We're tired, I slept but painfully, but Marc didn't really sleep. We didn't get the room we reserved -- they "upgraded" us to a suite with a private terrace and 2 twin beds.

For now, I'm signing off, just wanted to say that we got here and everything is great so far. Expect pictures tomorrow; I took some good ones from the plane, but we pay for Internet by the hour and I haven't looked at the pictures yet.

with a big happy smile

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Lori,
Glad to hear you made it. I was just following your itinerary and looking it up in the bk, 1000 Places to See Before You Die. There are 2 excellent restaurants in the Maurya Sheraton in Delhi for perfect tandoori, Dum Pukht and Bukhara. In Udaipur be sure to see both the City Palance and the Lake Palace (now a hotel). In Jaipur, be sure to see the Palacee of Winds (Hawa Mahal). It all sounds so exotic and lovely. If you get a chance there, try to see the movie "Water" (2005). It might take place in Varanasi. It's very moving and will resonate b/c of your new familiarity.
Here's the blurb:
After losing her husband to illness, 8-year-old Chuyia (Sarala) is forced to live out the rest of her days in a temple for Hindu widows, communing with 14 other women and a cruel headmistress who agrees to take her in. But it's through the trials of another widow, a beautiful prostitute named Kalyani (Lisa Ray) who's being courted by a man from a lower caste (John Abraham), that Chuyia learns the true restrictions of widowhood.

Have fun!

C

Lori said...

C -- thanks for digging up the restaurant recommendations! We'll see if the locations are navigable for us sans Hindi. Last night's wanderings to the restaurant were "interesting." And your suggestions for the purs (which is how I think of our Udaipur/Jaipur jaunt) are right on our itinerary already. Pictures to come, if the Internet connection holds. It takes ~10 minutes to upload one picture.

And GGRN -- thanks for the info, and I love you too!

It's really wonderful here...